Excerpt
PRELUDE
Night on bleak downs; a high grass-grown trench runs athwart the slope. The earthwork is manned by warriors clad in hides. Two warriors, BRYS and GAST, talking.
Gast.This puts a tall heart in me, and a tuneOf great glad blood flowing brave in my flesh,To see thee, after all these moons, returned,My Brys. If there's no rust in thy shoulder-joints,That battle-wrath of thine, and thy good throwing,Will be more help for us than if the dykeWere higher by a span.—Ha! there was howlingDown in the thicket; they come soon, for sure.
Brys. Has there been hunger in the forest long?
Gast.I think, not only hunger makes them fierce:They broke not long since into a village yonder,A huge throng of them; all through the night we heardThe feasting they kept up. And that has madeThe wolves blood-thirsty, I believe.
Brys. O foolsTo keep so slack a waking on their dykes!Now have they made a sleepless winter for us.Every night we must look, lest the down-slopeBetween us and the woods turn suddenlyTo a grey onrush full of small green candles,The charging pack with eyes flaming for flesh.And well for us then if there's no more mistThan the white panting of the wolfish hunger.
Gast.They'll come to-night. Three of us hunting wentAmong the trees below: not long we stayed.All the wolves of the world are in the forest,And man's the meat they're after.
Brys. Ay, it must beBlood-thirst is in them, if they come to-night,Such clear and starry weather.—What dost thou make,Gast, of the stars?
Gast. Brother, they're horrible.I always keep my head as much as I mayBent so they cannot look me in the eyes.
Brys.I never had this awe. The fear I haveIs not a load I crouch beneath, but somethingProud and wonderful, that lifteth my heart.Yea, I look on a night of stars with fearThat comes close against glee. 'Tis like the fearI have for the wolves, that maketh me joy-madTo drive the yellow flint-edge through their shags.So when I gaze on stars, they speak high fearInto my soul; and strangely I think they meanThe fear must prompt me to some unknown war.
Gast.Be thou well ware of this. I have not told theeHow the stars, with their perilous overlooking,Have raught away from all his manhood Gwat,Our fiercest strength. For when the conquering wolvesInto that village won, we in our hutsLay hearkening to their rejoicing hunger;But Gwat stayed out in the stars all night long.I peered at him as much as that whipt dog,My heart, had daring for; and he stood stiff,With all his senses aiming at the noise.Some strong bad eagerness kept tightly riggedThe cordage of his body, till his nervesLoosed on a sudden. He yelled, "What do we here,High up among bleak winds, always afraidOf murder from the wolves? I will be manNo more; the grey four-footed fellows haveThe good meats of the world, and the best lodging,Forest and weald." And then he wolfish howled,And hurled off towards the snarling and the baying.And now his soul wears the strength and furyOf a huge dun-pelted wolf; he's the wolves' king;And the fiends have learnt from him to laugh at our flints....